The other 6 billion
by Toriga-Okami
Summary: DRABBLE FOLDER: Latest drabble: Elaborate and Concise; she was moving on and he could only follow, caught in a trap of his own undoing. Rated T for now, ratings may change.
1. Sleeping beauty

Akiza and Yusei – Sleeping beauty.

She had been there from the beginning, cursed by a witch and kept from her society by virtue of that spell. She was different from others, that she knew, and with time her differences lead her to the lands of others, but they only got hurt and she only got the blame. How was she to know she could destroy? She was only a little girl...

The years passed and more people got hurt, they began to scorn and jeer, to hate and despise her. They wanted her gone and she thought she could do nothing more than oblige. She surrounded herself in a castle of thorns, roses, ivy; a veritable wall of nature, indifferent to the whims or taunting of the people who didn't understand her pain. But it didn't work, did it?

Her self-made prison could not block out the pain that seemed to seep through their very walls, and it was only the prospect of a worse 'outside' that kept her imprisoned. The years went by and she was so lonely, she thought she may die from sadness. But she didn't, did she?

Seemingly out of the blue, her castle was being attacked; a great shimmering dragon was slicing its way through her thorns, and on its wings came a man. At first she hated him. How dare he rip down her walls and expose her? Had he no feelings? But the man spoke to her, demeaning and belittling. It made her angry and she burst from her garden incarceration!

The pair battled and battled until finally she was weak and his dragon was gone. Having no more strength in her body, she began to fall. But low and behold the man caught her as she fell and cradled her in his arms. "Don't worry," He whispered softly, as her eyes began to close, "I will protect you..." And then she fell into a deep sleep.

The man took her from her thorny home and laid her in a bed of roses. There he cared for her as she slept, her curse was not broken yet, but soon she began to toss and turn. She was still in her prison and the roses were screaming at her, screaming about her curse! They would hurt the man who saved her! She was not changed yet! She was still the witch's accursed toy! She didn't want this, she wanted to change, she didn't want to hurt him! No! NO!

Something soft and warm enveloped her senses and she ceased to move. When she opened her eyes, there was the man. "You were calling my name." He spoke softly, stroking her hair from her face, "When you call me I will come. When you ask me I will answer. When you need me I will help. I am yours to command, though I may not always be near".

"What is your name?" She asked.

"Yusei."

"How did you wake me, Yusei?"

"With a kiss, Akiza."


	2. Elaborate and Concise

Elaborate and Concise.

Sometimes he wondered, when he was alone in the night, or in the darkness of his garage and no one was there to see the emotions playing across his face, how she had ever fallen so far, to rise to high?

The Akiza he had seen and fought against in that fateful tournament, so desperate and so alone, was a far cry from the Akiza he now saw every day, surrounded by people, always smiling, and with a laugh like silver bells. He could never have believed the changes if he hadn't been there to witness them himself. She was incredibly strong for someone who still claimed to despise herself, even in the throes of deepest passion.

It wasn't anything they'd planned, when they all banded together; he had been looking out for his hometown and his friends, and she had been looking out for herself, trying to find something that made her worthwhile. They had neither of them expected to be fighting for each other. In hindsight, it was probably the simplest thing he had ever done, trusting her enough to hand her his life and hope she didn't crush it, but at the time it had been complicated, so complicated that he hadn't even realised how much he trusted her – how much she _needed_ him to trust her – until they came to that moment.

It bothered him sometimes, when they were together at night with no one else around to disturb their quiet companionship, that those times of need were gone. For her at least. She seemed to be doing so much better on her own and though she still nearly always relayed every detail of her day to him, he noticed the only times he ever featured in her tales were meal times and washing day – it was becoming a bit of a habit for them all to do their washing at once and he never missed a chance to see her. It was also fast becoming obvious that her feelings towards him were changing. She was either relaxing into the idea that she would never lose him, or she was resigning herself to the idea that she would inevitably lose him. Either way, he felt like he was losing her...

They had never been official, or even anywhere near to the word; those few moments in his apartment were hardly romantic and never any longer than they needed to be. He had never even asked her if she loved him, and god knows he didn't want to ask _himself_ that question, the answer would surely bring him more pain and sufferance than he could be bothered to deal with. They stopped 'seeing each other' when Akiza missed a period. It was a false alarm of course, but they both decided that distance was a good thing.

Well she decided it, he merely agreed. There was no argument over power in their patchy relationship, no fight for dominance, and he supposed this might have been because they were never officially together. Had he thrown down his gauntlet, and she picked it up, they would have fought, he knew this. But even so, even _now_, just watching her having fun and enjoying herself _without_ him, was pure masochism. He couldn't decide which he liked more, the physical aspect of ruining his own existence by virtue of unrequited affection, or the visceral knowledge that she had somehow managed to avert her own demise, while he was still caught up in this elaborate and yet concise suicide.

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Prompts are greatly appreciated (hint hint) ;)

-Okami


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